The invention is related to the field of educational assessment, and in particular using an education framework that allows teachers, schools and districts to assess the educational needs of their students without stopping instruction to administer a traditional test.
Educational assessment is the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community (class, school, district or other organized group of learners), the institution, or the educational system as a whole. According to Dr. Joe Torgesen, “The goal [of an assessment plan] is to gain enough information about student progress to make effective decisions while minimizing the time spent administering assessments.”
Assessment is often divided into formative and summative categories for the purpose of considering different objectives for assessment practices. Summative assessment is generally carried out at the end of a course or project. In an educational setting, summative assessments are typically used to assign students a course grade. Formative assessment is generally carried out throughout a course or project. Formative assessment is used to assess student progress and aid in making instructional changes. In an educational setting, formative assessment is most typically seen as frequent progress monitoring of student performance and would not necessarily be used for grading purposes, but rather for determining if a student is learning in his/her current environment.
Summative and formative assessments are often referred to in a learning context as assessment of learning and assessment for learning respectively. Assessment of learning is generally summative in nature and intended to measure learning outcomes and report those outcomes to students, parents, and administrators. Assessment of learning generally occurs at the conclusion of a unit, class, semester, or academic year. Assessment for learning is generally formative in nature and is used by teachers to consider approaches to teaching and next steps for individual learners and the class.
Summative and formative assessments can be seen as the overarching umbrella terms of assessment. Under these two categories are four types of assessment: screening, progress monitoring, diagnostic, and outcome assessments. Typically, screening tools, and progress monitoring assessments fall under the category of formative while diagnostic and outcome measures fall under the summative category.
Screening tools, often referred to as ‘universal screeners’ provide schools with a tool that provides a quick way to assess all of the students in a particular grade or the whole school. These screeners give teachers and administrators a general sense of whether or not the student is on course for typical progress, needs some attention or is at great risk for reading failure. Those who score in the needing some attention or at high risk categories are usually identified as students who will be progress monitored using formative assessment tools. The frequency of these progress monitoring tests varies depending on the level of risk (i.e., the higher the risk, the more often the students are assessed). The results of the progress monitoring assessments are used by teachers to determine if the students are responding, or learning, in their current educational environment and if not, adjust the instructional intensity for the students.
Diagnostic Assessments traditionally provide an overall profile of a student's ability and can be thought of as summative, but subtests of larger diagnostic tools can be used as screeners or progress monitoring measures and therefore be classified as formative. Diagnostic assessments are lengthier in administration and therefore should only be given when additional or more reliable information can be gained from the test. Outcome measures are strong examples of summative assessment. They typically are given toward the end of the school year and provide answers to the whether or not the student is able to apply the knowledge he/she has learned and can also indicate how effective overall instruction has been for the class or school.
There is a need for assessing student abilities while at the same time allowing teachers, school and district level administrators better, more timely, access to information from the assessments. The invention uses a novel technique for assessment that allows teachers/schools/districts to obtain assessment-quality data to make effective decisions without stopping instruction to administer a traditional test.